Add Swipe-to-Search to ICS

One of the most touted features of Jelly Bean is the enhanced Voice Search, and the way that you can swipe up from the bottom of the screen in any app to launch search. It’s relatively simple to copy this behaviour in ICS quickly – but it does only work from a home screen. I’m using Apex Launcher but other ICS launchers have gesture support built in, and you may be able to do a similar thing in versions of Android before ICS.

So here’s the instructions for Apex Launcher:

Open the Apex Settings, and go to Behavior.

Touch Swipe Up and then choose Launch Shortcut.

From the menu that appears, pick Activities.

For a normal search, pick Google Search and then the com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox activity.

For voice search, pick Voice Search and then the com.google.android.voicesearch.RecognitionActivity activity.

Return to your homescreen, and swipe up from just above the dock. Your chosen search will now launch.

This is just a quick, cool feature to tide you over until Jelly Bean arrives for your device (soon if you own a Nexus device, else probably sometime in the next decade).